In a typical ink jet recording or printing system, ink droplets are ejected from a nozzle at high speeds towards a recording element or medium to produce an image on the medium.
The recording elements typically comprise a support or a support material having on at least one surface thereof an ink-receiving or image-forming layer.
In order to achieve and maintain high quality images on such an image-recording element, the recording element must:
Exhibit no banding, bleed, coalescence, or cracking in inked areas.
Exhibit the ability to absorb large amounts of ink and dry quickly to avoid blocking.
Exhibit high optical densities in the printed areas.
Exhibit freedom from differential gloss.
Have high levels of image fastness to avoid fade from contact with water or radiation by daylight, tungsten light, or fluorescent light.
While a wide variety of different types of image-recording elements for use with ink devices have been proposed heretofore, there are many unsolved problems in the art and many deficiencies in the known products that have severely limited their commercial usefulness. A major challenge in the design of an image-recording element is laminate adhesion. A typical coating from the prior art comprises a layer containing hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose, hydroxyethyl cellulose and a vinyl latex polymer, a layer of pectin, a layer of poly(vinyl alcohol) and polyurethane, and a layer of lime processed osseine gelatin in the order recited. However, this formulation has demonstrated coalescence, which is caused by ink puddling on the surface of the print.
EP 1 228 890 relates to an ink jet recording element which has an ink-receiving layer of a poly(vinyl alcohol-ethylene oxide) copolymer. However, there is a problem with this element in that it is not resistant to coalescence as one would like.
It is an object of this invention to provide an ink recording element which has excellent image quality and resistance to coalescence.